Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Kyrghyzs, Kazakhs and other peoples populate the various nations of Central Asia. Before 1900, many lived a nomadic life. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries witnessed major political and socioeconomic changes, with far-reaching consequences for nomadic life and cattle breeding. Two Russian experts, curators of the ethnographical museum in Saint Petersburg, discuss early nomadic culture and the major changes in this transition period. Ancient photographs and pictures of the collection in the Saint Petersburg museum illustrate their arguments.